Cake AND Cookies

Today we celebrate with chocolate halvah cookies and cake for E. Jean

"I filed this lawsuit against Donald Trump to clear my name and to get my life back. This victory is not just for me but for every woman who has suffered because she was not believed.”

E. Jean Carroll, May, 2023

Yesterday, yesterday! Thanks to Robbie Kaplan and her team of amazing, smart lawyers, courageous E. Jean was awarded a settlement in her defamation lawsuit.

E. Jean seemed to float out of the courthouse yesterday, arm-in-arm with her legal team. It was a joy to see, and a great win for women everywhere. Bake and eat cake in her honor.

Here are a bunch of us celebrating E. Jean in May 2023.

(You can make the algorithm smile like us in the photo above if you click “like.” Thank you.)

This Week on the Secret Life of Cookies Podcast

It’s time to stop laughing at Donald Trump. Quit the Saturday Night Live impressions, the “orange Cheet-o” memes and the giggling over the confusion of words that often tumbles from his mouth.

At least that’s what David Kamp, my guest on The Secret Life of Cookies podcast this week had to say—not only on my pod, but in his New York Times editorial, “I’ve Told My Last Trump Joke.” Democracy is at stake, he said, and we should be looking at our future with probity, not laughter.

These ideas aren’t coming from some John Winthrop-like scold, but my former colleague at SPY magazine, the satirical monthly that was the first to call Donald J. Trump a “short-fingered vulgarian,” but only when we weren’t referring to him as “Queens-born casino operator.” David is a writer of funny things, a guy who wants us to laugh, so when he said it was time to stop, I perked my ears up. Please give a listen to the pod and a read of his editorial and let me know what you think.

Baking is as much a part of my podcast as talking about the news of the day with interesting people like David. I always ask my guests what they want to bake with me or have me bake for them. David wondered if I could incorporate halvah—the sesame candy that somehow manages to be cloyingly sweet, yet nutty and pleasantly bitter—into a cookie. Why yes, yes I can, said I. (“Pleasantly Bitter.” Now there’s a title for my autobio.)

The resulting cookie is a deeply, darkly chocolatey cookie, with bittersweet chocolate chips and a caramelized chunk of halvah in the middle. It’s a like a thumbprint cookie got all dressed up for a black-tie event.

Listen to the podcast and bake along:

NOTES:

• But, where can you get halvah? You can find it sold by the chunk in Jewish delis and Middle Eastern food purveyors, but I barely had to stray from home and found bars of Joyva halvah in the section of my local Acme supermarket devoted to foods from the Middle East.

• I like to make these cookies large (3-ounce balls of dough, about 3 1/2-inches in diameter), but smaller 2-inch balls works fine, too. Just adjust the size of the halvah chunk.

• I ask for cold eggs, because the recipe calls for a long creaming time. Cold eggs prevents the dough from turning into a melty pool of dough.

• 2 teaspoon of salt may seem like a lot, but it enhances the whole halvah-chocolate experience.

• I used a mixture of whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour to help tone down the sweetness of the cookie. You can use just all-purpose flour, or make them gluten-free and use 4 ounces of oat flour and 4 ounces almond flour instead of the usual all-purpose white flour.

Make a big ol’ thumb print

Fill it with a big ol’ hunk of halvah

Halvah Cookies

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Printable recipe

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David’s Halvah Cookie

A very chocolatey cookie, made better with halvah.

Yield: 2 dozen 3-inch cookies

What You’ll Need:

2/3 cup (3 ounces) whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups (5 ounces) all-purpose flour

1/4 cup (2 ounces) Dutch process cocoa powder (not cocoa drink mix!)

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 3/4 teaspoon baking power

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup (4 ounces) butter, softened

1/2 cup (4 ounces) light brown sugar

1/2 cup (about 3 1/2 ounces) white sugar

2 large eggs, cold

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

11 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips (I used a bag of Ghirardelli’s)

About 5.5 ounces of halvah. (I used Joyva marble), cut into 1” x 1/2” by 1/4” pieces

What You’ll Do:

• In a small bowl, whisk together the flours, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.

• In a stand- or with a hand-mixer, cream the butter, white sugar and light brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides.

• Add the vanilla and beat until just combined.

• Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until the eggs look absorbed into the batter. Scrape down the sides of the bowls and the paddle.

• Add the flour-cocoa mixture and mix until the flour mixture is just moistened. Add in all those chips and mix on low speed until combined.

• Refrigerate the dough for 2 hours, or ideally, 8 hours to let the flours hydrate. If you are like me, however, you will bake some of the dough right away. Just promise me you’ll leave the rest to chill in the fridge, so you can see what a difference chilling the dough makes.

• When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Shape dough into balls about 3 1/2-inches in diameter for large cookies, 2 inches for smaller. Use your thumb or two fingers to make a generous indentation in the cookies. Fill each with one chunk of the halvah. Bake cookies for about 13 to 16 minutes for large balls, 12 to 15 for smaller ones. The exterior should look dry. Oven temperatures vary, so keep tweaking your timing until you are pleased.

• Let cool on the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

Okay, there’s a lot to talk about this week. Should we give up making jokes about Trump? How are you feeling about the Carroll settlement?

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